


Two soldiers in the shadows of ghosts

by wordfrenzy (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Brainwashing, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/wordfrenzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky fell from the train. Steve dove in after him. </p><p><i>'They found us.' The Captain steps forward. 'We fell from a train.</i> You <i>fell from a train and I followed. This is who we were. We don't forget this. HYDRA don't wipe our memories, they just hide them.'</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Two soldiers in the shadows of ghosts

He remembers.

 

.

 

_In the peak of summer, they're sprawled out on the kitchen floor, skin sticking to the tiles. Bucky sits with Steve's head in his lap, and he doesn't give a damn about the humidity and lack of air and discomfort — not in this position — as he idly runs his fingers across Steve's flushed cheek, a smile creeping up on him. 'Are you listening?'_

_Steve nods. 'Yeah.'_

_'You punk. What'd I say?'_

_'Uh.'_

_'I said.' Bucky leans down to kiss him. 'I love you.'_

 

.

 

There is a snapping noise, all empty and hollow, as the Captain breaks the man's neck.

It's his favoured move, quick and painless, unlike the questioning he'd led moments ago. There's blood on the Winter Soldier's knuckles, in the ridges of his metal arm and staining his flesh, and yet he doesn't feel any different, not like when he'd been given the orders to infiltrate the building, to kill those who were stupid enough to stand in his way, an unwavering neutrality.

The Captain strikes a match on his uniform, his mouth curving into a cynical smirk as he drops it, the wave of flames flickering in his eyes. They burst and lick along the floors, up the peeling walls, and around the fresh pile of bodies.

As they reach the outside, the warehouse is burning through, heavy with smoke and ashes that cling to the Soldier's throat — he can't complain; an asset never complains about anything, or anywhere, not about a mission this spectacularly easy. In and out, copying the information they need on a hard drive and picking the idiots off like flies. It's what is left behind that's the problem, ruins and bricks aren't what their orders had been, but the Captain does what he wants.

He is no better for letting it happen.

'You think burning the place down won't attract —'

'It will,' is the Captain's bland reply. 'I don't care. You shouldn't either.'

When he rarely wonders, it isn't things that matter, but he does not know why his partner is called the Captain. He has never been in charge, if his hunched shoulders and thick scars on his back are anything to go by.

 

.

 

It's in the way he fights.

The Soldier can see it, like plain daylight. The Captain — he's calculating, but impulsive, like an uncontrollable urge or not giving a damn. That's no it, though; he has a knife in the holster in his belt and a gun strapped to his chest, but he uses his hands and only his hands. The Captain knows the weapons are a better way of killing, but maybe the feel of broken bones against his knuckles are a thrill.

What the Soldier questions most is how the Captain holds an arm up in defence, as if he's holding a shield.

 

.

 

In the aftermath, an intensity remains beneath his skin, high and alive like electric.

His body aches and he thinks the scarring between his metal and flesh arm will split open, a searing pain that tightens the skin whenever he shifts, but it's not like he can do anything about it. Scientists can fix it, tear it open with knives and soldering irons, and start again, easy and simple. Ahead of him, rigid and flexing his hands, is the Captain; for a reason unbeknownst to the Soldier, tension is always thick in the air.

The Soldier ignores it.

He understands the emotion — anger, something that eats at his insides and burns up his throat, but since those few incidents landed him in medical again, he refuses to feel it much nowadays. He doesn't want to feel it now, a weakness that must inevitably be ignored, so focuses on flipping his knife, feeling the slice of its sharp edge across his fingers. It's familiar in his hold, the very same used over and over for each mission. It feels right.

The van pulls up to base. As habit and contradicting what he thought earlier, (he has never been in charge), the Captain gets out first, and the Solider follows.

 

.

 

'Prep him,' Cэр says as soon as they enter.

Four guards appear and restrain the Captain as a scientist stabs a needle in his arm. He droops almost instantly, but still tries to struggle; he knocks over one guard, but the heavy doses of drugs take over his system within a blink and he falls slack enough for them to throw him into the chair. It's not enough for him to go unconscious — Cэр wants him awake, to make the Captain understand his punishment in its harshest form.

'Take this as a lesson,' Cэр says, and the Soldier is unsure of whom he is addressing, 'to take my orders and only mine.'

Metal bars lock over the Captain's arms, the headpiece securing around his head, and then the room is full of static and blue lights and electricity. And then —

The Soldier cannot look away — no, that's against the rules. Unless he's given the instruction, he must stay and endure, as if a second-hand lesson. He's only experienced the process and never watched, only felt. He can remember down to the very last detail, a burning that starts from the temples and ripples down, throughout his body. Then: only pain.

The Captain's knuckles are white from how tightly he holds onto the arms of his chair, shaking and fabric tearing under his clenched hands; he breaths too harsh and too fast, the Soldier knows it's from how his lungs feel like they're filling up with water, cold, icy water, and the blood pounding in his ears doesn't make the sensation any more bearable. His body and strength does nothing to help. He's screaming, trying to hold each in by gritting his teeth, but he's still screaming, and screaming, and that's all that stabs the air.

He tries to ignore it, doesn't blink once. He's told pain is leaning.

Pain is learning.

When the procedure is done, the Captain is dragged away to recover for their next mission, but the Solider does not move. He keeps his hands steady at his sides. He frowns.

Cэр turns to him. 'Are you stable enough?'

'Yes, Cэр.'

There is a pause, and then: 'Prep him.'

 

.

 

_Kill the Director._

_Kill Nick Fury._

_Kill —_

The Soldier was ready to complete the mission — had knives, guns and cluster bombs on hand — and once he'd seen the explosive latch under the target's car, flip over and skid along the road in a loud screech, he and the Captain were prepared. He cracks his knuckles, rolls his metal shoulder, and feels that buzz of adrenaline along his skin.

But a flash of red stops them. Hair, bright, red hair flittering in his vision, and then a pair of thighs are wrapped around his neck. The Soldier makes a grab for her, trying to flip her over his front, but a cord across his hand and throat keeps him from doing so. In the corner of his eye, the Captain sets his focus on the upturned car; he walks with a strong certainty, fists clenched by sides. He grabs the crumpled door and yanks it off its hinges in a clean swipe.

It's empty.

When the Captain whips back towards them, eyes ablaze, the Soldier throws the woman off him. The Captain takes out his gun and says, 'она моя.'

He grabs her by the neck and pins her against the nearest wall. It's easy to see — not even she can hide fear, briefly fleeting in her gaze when the Captain tightens his grasp, digging in her windpipe; a strained, heavy gasp breaks past her mouth, flecked with spit and blood. She's not struggling, even when her lips are slightly blue and tears gather at the corner of her eyes. She knows something.

'думаю о том, что вы делаете,' the woman forces out; they notice. 'We're old friends and all.'

The Solider hesitates, his gun faltering. He hesitates because he looks at her, really looks at her. It's not her eyes or the fiery persona or the capability to match his moves, but the sudden knowing smirk she flashes at him. The Soldier never hesitates, and only does now because this woman is someone who knows him in a way that isn't classified. He looks to see the Captain is frozen, but then he blinks once, before his nostrils flare and he pulls back his other arm, and —

She sees it coming.

Kicking her leg out, her booted foot lands squarely in the Captain's stomach. It winds him and he doubles over, his hand slipping just enough for her to knee him in the face. She unhooks a cluster bomb — the Soldier's cluster bomb, and it blasts in an array or fire and surrounding debris, throwing them backwards. They recover, but she is already gone.

Natasha is gone.

 

.

 

All he sees is what's reflected from himself: tight-lipped and dead eyes.

The Captain comes for him as soon as they enter base, his hand tight around the Soldier's throat and lifting him a few inches off the floor. It cuts off his air — too much, but the Soldier is prepared, cuffing him around the face with his bionic arm. It cracks, his skull or the Soldier's plates, he doesn't know, but he's thrown across the room before he can find out which, back slamming against the wall; white spots invade his senses, and it takes him several seconds longer to regain stability, long enough for the Captain to spin and kick him in the chest.

He staggers back, but yanks the knife from his belt and hurls it at the Captain; the plaster splits as it lodges in the wall. He never misses, has never used an improvised move, but the veil of confusion over his the strategic part of his mind says otherwise. The Soldier manages to dodge the clumsily-aimed punch the Captain tries to land, but not the knee against his chin that follows, and he groans around a mouthful of blood.

With enough force to make him almost black out, the Captain punches him, hard, a myriad of bruises most likely to bloom across his cheek. He blocks another with his arm; the metal creaks and shudders under the pressure. It takes a little more effort than usual to throw him off, and he's ready to deliver the final blow, but by reflex the Captain rolls away, wood splintering under the Soldier's hand, and it's enough wasted time for thighs to clamp around his neck in a choke hold.

'You should have killed her,' the Captain growls. 'We failed the mission because of you.'

'She was yours.' Air returns to his lungs as he's released, but instead he's then pinned to the floor, irritation and skepticism shared between them, uncontrollable and an unfamiliar feeling; he knows. 'You knew her.'

'Shut up —'

'Admit it. You knew her.'

The Captain lets out a low, livid noise, almost in warning before he reels his arm back, maybe to kill him, but then the Soldier head-butts him, a splatter of blood and moan of pain his reward. It's a sloppy move, but gives him the chance to shove the weight off him and get to his feet. They stand opposite each other, covered in sweat and bruises that'll only last a few hours. They heave in dry breaths.

'You knew her.'

'No —' The Captain loses it, an ugly and uncoordinated flinging of punches. 'We didn't. We don't.'

And then he's there, picking up the knife that's carelessly discarded on the floor. The Soldier is ready to move, but when the Captain throws it, barely skimming over his jaw, a sting as it cuts it open, it's obvious he'd purposefully missed. He's crumbling, broken down into an unfurling ball of uncertainty, what neither had learnt about.

'I'm disappointed,' a voice says. 'Not only have you failed, but you've shown me how unfit you are for future assignments.'

Cэр enters the Soldier's field of vision. They both straighten.

'You're both a gift to mankind, shaped the century — and this, this is how you repay those who helped you become what you are today.' Cэр tuts, one hand in his pocket. 'It would be a shame for that hard work to go to waste. You're cogs in the system, and without those cogs, the system doesn't work. Without the system, HYDRA can't give society the freedom it deserves.'

'The woman on the bridge,' the Soldier says, a string of words that come out before he can stop them. 'Who was she?'

'You met on a previous assignment.'

'When?'

Cэр sighs. 'That's not relevant to your current mission.'

There's a silence; the Soldier frowns, a sense of recognition lighting up in the back of his mind, just there, constantly blinking as it gets stronger. A moment it's there, then gone, repeating the same cycle. 'But I knew her. We knew her.'

His throat is tight and a horrid, stale taste clings to the roof of his mouth. He should not have asked — he follows orders, and that's all he does. He, they, are both machines, programmed to listen and obey for what their employer wants, each and every moment they are given, or they must learn.

'We can do this in two ways: either you do your duties for HYDRA, or I, sadly, dispose of the both of you.'

It is never the last.

 

.

 

Pain is learning.

 

.

 

Nick Fury is dead the next day. Gunned down through a wall. There is no quick getaway, no one on their tail, not yet. Whilst the Soldier slides down the fire escape of the apartment building Fury had hidden in, inside Carter's place, the Captain jumps off the roof — and that little light in the back of the Soldier's head lights up, before dying out again.

 

.

 

It happens a third time, but it's a memory.

A shift in the Soldier's mind. They remember few things, merging of images through fog, of red hair and a fight as the consequence. It starts in the training room, the only other place they're free to roam. He flips the knife, three times, blood and dirt under his nails, and there is still a lingering annoyance; the past few days feel like a year's worth of thoughts.

The Captain is heard in the distance, frustrated grunts and knuckles cracking under the punches he lands on the bag. Sweat slicks his forehead and smears some of the black combat paint around his eyes. 'You shouldn't have said anything.'

'Said what —?'

'You know what.' His hands are red. 'If you hadn't said anything, we wouldn't have been wiped.'

It's doubtful. A memory, an unnatural thought, the slightest change in the process, or none of it at all, the end result would always be a clean slate. It's why he has the ghost of exhaustion on his bones and pang across his forehead, feeling as if it's still clamped down and ready to be dissected and reused. He can see it in the Captain, too; there's a sagging to his usually broad shoulders and a tremble that judders through his hands every so often.

You make a mistake, you're wiped. You follow orders, you're wiped.

'Did you want to remember?'

The Captain's jaw tightens at that, wringing the rag in his hands to wrap his battered knuckles. 'Not everything is removed. Things get left behind.'

'They're listening to us —'

'I disabled it all,' the Captain says, tying the knot on the rag. 'They know we're talking, know we know something. Doesn't mean they'll find out. We won't say anything.' And he looks up, eyes starkly blue and lips moving, but the Soldier can only focus on the words that follow, 'You got that, Bucky?'

_'I had him on the ropes.'_

_'I know you did.'_

The Captain's eyes flicker.

_He's falling—ice, cold, it's everywhere._

_'Bucky!'_

_A dark figure pushes off and falls with him, a hand reaching out and just barely grasping his own. He's still holding onto it when he hits the ground and is swallowed by snow and black._

It's so quick that, for a moment, he can't remember any of it. There is only a stagger of his foot as he steps back and the harsh breath he sucks into his lungs stings. The Solider — Bucky, the Soldier, blinks just once, and sees the Captain retreating already, faced with his back, rigid and tight. He frowns, and shakes his head, speaking in the empty echo of a room.

'Who the hell is Bucky?'

 

.

 

The Soldier doesn't sleep that night.

Most nights he doesn't, or only few hours are spent with his eyes closed — his mind is in a mode of overzealous work, straining over his limits. In his cell, with its small confines and airless atmosphere, isn't much different to cyro. It's noticeable now, sensitive to any noise and an itch or tick he can't get rid of, not even practicing moves or taking it out on the brick wall is enough.

Bucky.

He sees flashes the more times he thinks of the name. His name.

A skinny guy with blue eyes, blood spilling from his split lip, says the name to him. It's new, but old, and the Soldier isn't sure on how to process it, a tightness in his chest unpleasant, but it isn't anger or anything he's known to have felt but now cannot place the label. He sits on his bunk, and leans forward so his elbows dig into his thighs, his metal fingers clicking as he flexes them. The feeling in his chest tightens further.

The thought of how the skinny guy looks like the Captain is what he sees when he finally closes his eyes.

 

.

 

'I'm disappointed.'

Cэр leans in close; the Soldier looks away, and tries to swallow away the thick feeling in his throat. He shrinks back against the chair — the operating chair, memory-wiping chair, he doesn't know what to call it — and with his shirt off, his breaths clear with the rise and fall of his chest, he's exposed.

It's cold in the room. He shudders. 'I don't know what's happening to me.'

A second shudder runs through him when Cэр tilts his chin up with two fingers, holds them there. 'It's because you're weak, the both of you. These past two months you've failed me, and the promise you made to America, to the world. You and the Captain are incompatible, so you've given me no other choice than to separate the two of you, start afresh from a different angle. This way there's no room for disappointment.'

The Soldier feels oddly put off by this, and maybe it's because these two months is the longest he's been out of cyro and has known the Captain, or for another reason he has thought about but refuses to address, but either way he can only look away and nod, because maybe he wants this, to forget. Because pain is learning. Pain is learning.

'Do you understand?'

'Yes, Cэр.'

'Prep him.'

They do. The bars bolt around his arms, the mouthpiece shoved into his mouth. He doesn't struggle, not like he usually does, as its a confliction within him that prevents him from doing so, an exhaustion and confusion as he watches Cэр leave. As he's ready for the static around his head and the near feeling of bleeding from his ears, he still hears it.

Gunshots.

The Captain storms the room, taking out the guards as he goes — kills them, with either a twist of their necks or smashing their skulls up against the wall. Utensils fly across the room, scalpels that lodge themselves in one of the guard's chest, hard enough that it nearly comes out the other side. It's fast and it's aggressive, and within seconds it's over. He doesn't move by his own accord until the restraints are ripped apart by bare hands and he's yanked to his feet, a gun pressed into his hand. Bodies lay in mangled shapes, blood and shredded bones.

He clicks the safety off. 'What are you doing?'

'Hell does it look like?'

A pause, and then: 'Like you suddenly give a damn.'

The Soldier receives no answer, only the sight of a back again as the Captain wastes no time to leave. The Soldier wastes no time of his own to step over the bodies and walk out the door. He follows.

He always follows.

 

.

 

'What happened —?'

'Failed lockdown,' the Captain says. 'For resistance.'

The Soldier then notices there's a syringe sticking out of his leg and his clothes are torn, and that there is a file clutched in his fist. It says Steven Grant Rogers on the front, in thick red letters; he knows well enough that the name belongs to him, but he does not ask any further. He doesn't ask if his own was whenever he found it, or if the Captain has it on him.

They slip through the hallways, more rows of bodies lining the floors. The Soldier sees the shadows of three guards lurking at the end, and before two even try to come into full view, he picks them off with two bullets that hit directly through their necks, killing the third by smashing his head with his metal hand in a single punch. He still only wears combat pants and a shirt the Captain had tossed at him, and he feels odd, at how easily the wall in his mind has been broken down.

The glass that separated him from the reality is cracking — it's breaking.

He knows what's happening to him, that this Bucky was him. It isn't hard to explain, with the clean slates and images of a man like him but with short hair and clean-shaven; he knows, has since Natasha on the bridge, that this isn't right. It isn't right but he's in denial. It isn't right.

'Hurry up,' the Captain says. 'I've set explosions in the west wing. We have five minutes.'

'We won't make it by then. Guards will be waiting in the right.'

The Captain nods. 'They are.'

And then he throws an arm out and pushes the Soldier in a corner, just as an explosion blows, its aftershocks shuddering along the ceiling. Dust floats down and covers the floor in a thin layer, and they leave boot prints as they set off again. It takes a minute to reach a back entrance, the steel bar along it is snapped in two by the strain of their muscles. An alarm starts to yell overhead, but they run out, into the sunlight of a roof they hadn't known existed; they only enter vans, to and from base, without knowing what the building they occupied looked like.

In a breath, the Captain runs and jumps onto the opposite building, not stopping to look back. The Soldier jumps, too, skidding along concrete when he lands. As he runs, the last few seconds — the ones he counted as soon as the Captain told him about the bombs — tick by slowly, until he hears the thunder of a structure falling, feels the heat on his back, and hears the screams from down below. He keeps running, keeps following, waits until the Captain stops in an alleyway three miles out.

'You want Cэр to see?'

'Don't call him that,' the Captain snaps, blond hair askew across his forehead. 'His name is Pierce. Alexander Pierce.'

The Soldier rolls his arm, odd in its socket. The title tastes odd in his mouth, but even with the Captain telling him not to, a reluctance, if that's what this is, holds him back; he's awaiting the burn at the base of his skull or backhand across his face if he calls him anything other than Cэр. He frowns and shakes his head, a thickness in his throat as he tries to swallow round it.

'I want him to see how he's underestimated us,' the Captain says. 'I'll show him what will happen when he can't handle us, then I won't stop until every HYDRA base is destroyed or burnt to the ground.'

He looks at the Soldier.

'And then I'm going to kill him.'

 

.

 

'What changed?'

They're in an apartment they'd broken into, sitting on the balcony but shadowed by the night. The Captain doesn't look worried, doesn't show even the slightest concern, for what will be coming soon and how they'll be outnumbered. Cэр — Pierce will hunt them down, and either deal with them in two ways: kill them, or strap them back in the chair and wipe them; part of the Soldier wants it to be the former, but that would be too easy, too forgiving.

The Captain looks at him, hand still tight around his gun, and says, 'The triggers — things that happened seventy years ago, the lies they told us. Somebody had to do something; I was the only one that would.' Then: 'Have you?'

His hands are shaky. 'I don't know.'

He expects a shake of the Captain's head, or I won't need you on the job anyway, but blinks when instead he receives a nod, those blue eyes that suddenly remind him of the skinny guy, deep in the back in his memories; then the Captain returns his attention back to the city of Washington ahead of them, tightens his hold on the gun again that doesn't seem out of habit or instinct this time, and simply says,

'That's okay.'

.

 

The Soldier wakes to shouts.

He finds the source; the Captain punches a hole though the wall, sweat on his brow and his chest rising with heavy breaths. On the floor are scattered pieces of paper, torn and frayed. They're from the file, the Soldier knows, as the binder lays amongst them, the bold letters of Steve Rogers standing out.

As the Captain goes to kick his boot through another part of the wall, the Soldier steps forward, ready to reach out, and —

He's thrown across the room, denting the plaster with his back. This time the Captain won't win, not whilst he's unstable, in a frenzied state of blinded anger — not whilst the Soldier won't let him, won't let him be compromised. He grabs the Captain by the back of the neck with his left hand, spins him round and slams him against the wall; the Captain tries to get free, but with the Soldier pressing hard against his throat with his arm, pushing his weight on him, he struggles.

'Stop this,' the Soldier says. 'Whatever you saw, forget it.'

The Captain's gaze flares. 'Would you forget this?'

He thrusts a photo in the Soldier's face — it's them. A faded photo, wearing uniforms that date back to the nineteen-forties, and it causes his arm to drop and clutch at his head as a stab of pain hits him. They're smiling, and that's what stuns him most, void of the dark, unresponsive eyes and aged faces. He remembers it, remembers the moment that photo had been taken, with the flash of the camera and smoke that followed, how they'd be pressed against each other and arms thrown across their shoulders.

He remembers.

'They found us.' The Captain steps forward. 'We fell from a train. _You_ fell from a train and I followed. This is who we were. We don't forget this. HYDRA don't wipe our memories, they just hide them.'

The Soldier slides to the floor, expression blank but hands shaky, and he's left that way, clutching the photo in his fist. Whilst he tries to breathe, tries to get enough air into his lungs, he hears the Captain's anger echoing in another room again, and maybe he's right about HYDRA — this anger, it's a feeling the Soldier has forgotten what it feels like, and it seems like the Captain never forgot, as if that sort of thing is part of him since birth. Maybe that's why the memories aren't so much of a shock to him, because they were never really gone. They're a part of him.

For the Soldier it's a different story. He remembers, but he feels detached from them. HYDRA did this, they took away what it's like to feel. What the good things feel like. They took away who he was.

They took away James Barnes.

For that, they'll pay.

 

.

 

'Get out —'

'If you wanted to kill me, Rogers, you'd have done it by now.'

It's Romanoff, Natasha, the Soldier sees as he walks in on them both, his gun trained on her. The Soldier finds himself tense at the use of the Captain's real surname, rather than 'the Captain' or 'associate', but he seems unfazed, only clicks the safety off on his gun, his hand pressing harder on her jugular; this time she doesn't look afraid.

The Captain makes a growling noise. 'I should kill you for what you did.'

'And what did I do?'

'You compromised our mission —'

A smirk ghosts over her lips. 'That wasn't on me. It wasn't on you or Barnes either. You know who the enemy is. That's why I'm here. We've been keeping an eye on the two of you, and by the stunt you pulled yesterday you have the same objective as us. We want to help you accomplish that objective.'

'Define we.' But the Captain doesn't let her answer. 'If by we you mean SHIELD, they've been fraternizing with HYDRA for the past fifty years. You sure you want to get involved with that?'

'More reason to.'

It doesn't convince the Captain one bit, as he sparks with anger again; it's been pent up, the Soldier can see, after years of wanting to explode but being wiped before being able to. It's uncontrollable and takes advantage of his weak spots, being one of his limited responses, and he wraps his fingers around her neck, squeezes once. Her eyes flash.

The Captain spits, 'We didn't deserve this.' Then: 'He didn't deserve this.'

'I know he didn't.'

Before the Soldier has the chance to question what that means, or for the Captain to finish her off with a clench of his fist, something whistles as it splits through the window — a tranquilizer, what the Soldier knows as the needle hits him in the leg, the wave of numbness taking over almost immediately; the black spots invade his vision, knees buckling, until the last thing he sees is the Captain trying to grab for him before getting a needle in the neck.

 

.

 

He's in a room with dank walls and a foul smell.

Natasha is in the room with him.

His first instinct is to attack, or defend himself, but as goes to move, the restraints around his wrist yank him back. A metal of some sort, one he can't break even with his bionic arm. An SI logo is etched into the cuff. His hair falls lank in his face, and sweat beads on his skin. 'Why did you sedate us?' is the first thing that leaves his dry mouth.

'I knew Rogers wouldn't negotiate,' she says. 'Precaution, mostly. What I said was true. We do want to help.'

'With what?'

She lays a electronic pad on his lap. 'Alexander Pierce plans to assassinate millions across the globe using Project Insight, three heavily-armed, satellite-linked Helicarriers that will be launched shortly. Myself and Agent Hill agreed that recruiting you and Captain Rogers would be our best bet at disbanding SHIELD and HYDRA.' She turns it off. 'You can help us, or you can walk away, but Pierce won't stop until you're back in that chair, James.'

It's running through his mind, a chaos he wishes hadn't appeared, and he looks anywhere but her — looks at the cracks in the wall, at his bare feet, or the trembling of his hands. He tastes the salt of sweat on his lip and shuts his eyes.

She stands and heads back to the door, turning only to say, 'I'll leave you to think.'

And it rushes out of him, 'How do I know you?'

'We were in the Red Room.'

He realises she had called him James.

 

.

 

Ice.

Scalpels.

Electricity burns along his skull.

The Soldier falls from a train, screams as the wind whips around him — it's all there, even as he wakes gasping for breath. He presses his back against the wall, head clutched between his knees; his chest feels too tight, or maybe his lungs are too small, either way it feels like he's back in the chair, ready and yet not ready for the static around his head.

It's the fourth time he's woken with a cold sweat on his back and uncontrollable tremors running through him. Natasha has offered him drugs each time, sedation to help blank his mind, but he wants the memories; he wants the past to bombard him, to swallow him whole, anything than to feel nothing at all. He doesn't want to be put back into that persona of being stuck in a unwavering, neutral line, not experiencing anything but take and follow orders.

And maybe it's part of his state that makes him believe the Captain is crouched in front of him, hands on his shoulders and says in a murmur, 'It's okay.'

He wants to think it's real.

 

.

 

'We should help them.'

The Captain looks up at the sound of his voice; they're still be kept apart, this time separated by glass. 'They tell you to say that?'

'No,' the Soldier says, and then he frowns, searching for the right words; it takes longer now with the permission to speak for than one word and on his own command. 'They may be part of an organisation infiltrated with HYDRA, but they're not them. I'm going to help them with what needs to be done. Whether you help is your choice.'

He does — he doesn't need a reason to convince him; it's not helping, not really, as he has his own reason. It's what they did, are still doing, to someone who didn't deserve this, and that someone is standing in front of the Soldier, naked of combat gear and paint on his face, left with a vulnerable strip of something else entirely. It doesn't look that way, the crackling of anger that lingers a good camouflage, but the Soldier knows underneath there's confusion and someone trying to adjust. He knows because he feels it.

'Who are you doing this for?' the Captain says. 'You?'

The Soldier shakes his head. 'No.'

He leaves.

 

.

 

_'I said.' The Soldier leans down to kiss him. 'I love you.'_

 

.

 

The fifth time he dreams, there is no pain or ice, only kisses and laughter that doesn't sound like him; there are blue eyes and he feels dangerously close to feeling like he misses it.

 

.

 

'We didn't like each other much, did we?'

As the Soldier walks down the hallway — a limited amount of time he's allowed, in a monitored space through the cameras that line the walls and microphones — he overhears the Captain speaking to Natasha; they stand in his cell, or living area, the Captain sitting on his bunk and Natasha standing by the wall.

She crosses her arms. 'No.'

'Why?'

'You know why.'

'I think I do,' he says, and a smirk tightens his mouth. 'But a screwed up mind can give anyone doubts.'

They know the Soldier stands behind the wall, peeking around it, both learning whatever it takes to become an assassin, down to the very last detail, but Natasha answers the Captain regardless, maybe for either of their benefits, 'Because you loved each other, even before you became the Captain and Winter Soldier. You know all this. You read his file.'

It drops in his stomach, an agitation, an anger. He knows because it burns under his skin, an unfamiliar heat flaring across his face. The Captain read his file, without telling him or even asking for permission, and it doesn't matter if the Soldier doesn't want to read it himself, because on some strange level, he and the Captain work well together; compatible, in odd ways, and though it isn't plain, there is a trust there — a trust that means he can turn around on the enemy and not get shot in the back, and it stems from the past they had together, one he hasn't recognised fully yet, but how the Captain (or then as Steve), would throw himself off a speeding train makes the Soldier believe there is something between them.

Why he feels so angry about it, where in this distorted partnership it shouldn't, he's yet to find out. Love is something he hasn't acknowledged; he remembers glimpses of the emotion, with Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers touching hands in the night or sharing passionate kisses in the back of an alleyway. Then it was a spark, he knows, but now it's blank and all but a memory.

He walks in just as Natasha walks out. She pauses to look at him, and then strides off without a word.

The Soldier doesn't let the Captain speak, and grabs him by the front of his shirt, slamming him against the wall. 'How did you get my file?'

'Romanoff.'

The knuckles of his right hand whiten. 'Why did you read it?'

Then, something that makes the Soldier's hand loosen a fraction, the Captain gives him a bitter, grim laugh. 'Because I care.'

Maybe it's a fault in his programming.

Maybe it's insanity.

Maybe it's just the new wanting a glimpse of the old that makes the Soldier kisses the Captain, and it's hard, the response instant as a hand fists his hair, the other belting around his back — it's hard, and it's fast, and he can taste blood as his lip splits open; the heat spills from his cheeks into the rest of his body, a feeling of anxiety and confusion tightening in his chest. He steps back, hand pressing against his mouth.

He shakes his head. 'Don't read my file again.'

'Don't you want to?'

'No,' the Soldier says. 'I won't ever be him again.'

 

.

 

On the day before their mission — there's no other word for it, despite how much it makes a shudder run through the Soldier — the Captain asks Natasha if they have his shield. She says yes, was found by Howard Stark a year after their disappearance. He wants it, and when they give it to him, he slips it onto his arm; the blue and red are bright against the black combat gear, to the paleness of his skin and eyes.

When the Soldier asks him afterwards why he wants the shield, the Captain replies, 'You're right, we won't ever be who we were, but I sure as hell don't want to be who I am.'

And then he smiles.

It's a smile that makes the Soldier think of Steve Rogers.

 

.

 

'James.'

It's the first time the Captain has called him anything — the first time the use of his real name hasn't hit his ears wrong.

He stops loading his gun, slips it into his holster. He looks up, waiting, holding his gaze with the Captain's, and it's intense, almost as if he wants to march over and kiss him again, but he doesn't. He only looks.

The Captain nods. 'Good luck.'

 

.

 

'Barnes, you've got hostiles. Two from the west, two east,' Hill says through his intercom.

Seconds before he'd split from the Captain, both high jacking planes to crash them atop the helicarriers; Natasha had switched the chip in the first, and it is only a matter of time before the second links; that leaves the Captain to finish the third, to end it all. Even with his mind in a state of overdrive and calculating each minute that went by before Project Insight activated.

The hostiles creep beneath the balcony he stands on, guns held up — he jumps, jumps so he lands on the first hostiles back, putting a bullet in his head before he can take a breath. He takes out the second just as quickly as the hostile turns. The third and forth put up a fight, firing his way in blind shots; one slits the side of his thigh and it burns, but he grabs the third by the arm, twists and pushes it until he hears the snap, and dodges the punch the forth tries to swing his way. The third cries out when the Soldier cracks his knee with the heel of his boot, but his neck is broken before he hits the ground.

And the forth doesn't have time to scream before he falls into the river below.

As he runs, chip in hand, he hears it.

His intercom crackles, and then, then the familiar voice buzzes through. 'You won't come back from this.'

Cэр.

Pierce.

'You won't become the hero,' he says; there's an alarm going off in the background. 'You'll still be known as a murderer to the world. If you think you'll be accepted at the end of this, think again.'

His chest is tight, but it comes naturally. 'I'm not doing this to be a hero.'

'Then what —'

'I'm doing this for him.'

'Spu —'

The Soldier rips the earpiece out, and slams the new chip in. It flickers green. He runs to the edge, waits for anything to happen, for the armory to turn or a signal to show itself, but that doesn't. He sees worse, sees from even this distance, the Captain fighting with hostiles; he clutches his side, one hand faltering as he tries to hold up the shield.

But he hears the beep, the crunch of guns turning, and the explosion as the Helicarriers start to fire at each other, into a ball of flames and smoke.

It judders through the Soldier, and he falls to his knees. He doesn't watch what happens around him, he doesn't need to as the Helicarrier plummets to the ground, as metal structures collapse, and he watches as the one Steve fights on does the same. He doesn't fight through the flames to get back to the plane, or jumps to safety, only keeps his eyes on the Captain — he watches as a gun is pulled from the hostiles belt, points it at him, and fires into his stomach. The Captain falls.

The Captain falls and the Soldier watches.

There is a beat.

And then he dives in after him. As he falls, he thinks of how familiar it is.

 

.

 

_'I love you.'_

 

.

 

He wakes choking on a scream.

The room isn't what he expects — it's underground, but that of where he'd been taken to by Natasha, rather than the suffocating bunker Pierce trapped him in. There's a bandage on his thigh, spotted with blood, and an IV in his arm. He wants to tear it out, but the handcuffs around his wrists and bed rails stop him. He can break them, if he tries hard, but his gaze is drawn to the space beside him, to the space where the Captain lays in a bed of his own.

His heartrate picks up again as the Soldier looks him over. A bruise has swelled his eye shut, cuts over his face, but the bullet wound he knows sits under his gown is what makes his chest flare.

'Don't break the cuffs,' the Captain says. 'I'm fine.'

'Did you, is it —'

'I don't know. Woke up here an hour ago.'

The Soldier nods wordlessly, hands clenching into fists. His thigh aches, and with the beeping of his IV in his ear, he feels like closing his eyes and shutting off for a long, long time. Just the rest the disaster of a mind he has, away in a deep abyss to swallow him whole, to quiet down the loudness. He takes a breath, in and out, his ribs hurting and tingling down his throat, but he breaths. He breathes.

'Check under your sheet.' The Soldier opens his eyes to see the Captain still looking at him. 'I left something there for you.'

He doesn't even bother asking how the Captain managed to do it, as it wouldn't make any difference; he slips his hand under the sheet, feels around until he comes across it, cold and metal, and when he pulls it out, his chest squeezes: dog tags. Barnes B, James, 32557038. The breathing hitches. 'Where — why?'

'Found them in your file,' the Captain says; this time it doesn't cause any anger, doesn't cause anything. 'I know what you said, about how we'll never be who we were, but I know what I said, about how things get left behind. Things that are part of us. My shield — I thought that would be me, but it's not, but these are,' he pulls out his own dog tags from under his shirt. 'Thought I'd hate to see these, but they remind me of who I want to try and be. Don't you want that?'

The Soldier can only shrug, because he doesn't know, not right now. It's almost a shock at how different the Captain speaks, how personal it feels, and the Soldier wonders if he changes so quickly because he'd been stronger. HYDRA hadn't taken the core of his being, and though it felt impossible, maybe the Soldier wants that too.

He remembers the first few years on the chair, the screaming, the fighting to break free, how in the cloud of losing himself, he still asked for Steve Rogers, asked for Steve. They would lie, tell him he's dead or not coming, and it hadn't mattered that the answers changed, because at that time he never would've remembered. He remembers being strong, strong enough to have gone for as long as he could — and he's still there, within reach, as long as he believes it.

His hand closes around the dog tags, holding on tight.

 

.

 

'Pierce is dead.'

Natasha stands at the foot of his bed, and handcuffed to a bed, he's a little intimidated. 'Who —'

'Fury,' she says, but before he can ask how, I killed him, she speaks over him. 'He never died. Almost did. He faked his death, using Tetrodotoxine B, a drug that slowed his heart rate down enough. He went into hiding afterwards.' She looks down, and he knows the look, distancing out as she remembers what felt real. 'When I linked the first Helicarrier, I confronted Pierce, so did Fury. One round in the chest was all it took.'

Pierce was dead, and though something in his chest loosened, he doesn't react, he can't react. Not yet, maybe not ever. In spite of Pierce taking his emotions away from him, part of the Soldier is glad, as a man like Pierce doesn't deserve the gratification of his feelings, even in death; he doesn't deserve anything but the bullets in his heart.

The Soldier nods, eyes on his hands. 'That's — that's good.'

'What now?'

'Don't exactly have anything planned.'

She gives him a slight smile. 'If it helps, you're off the radar.'

In the moment, with the Captain asleep in the bed beside him, really asleep for the first time he's seen that isn't surrounded by ice, he wants to leave; he wants to leave and not come back for a while, not until he knows — knows what his purpose is.

.

 

They visit their exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum a few weeks later.

It tells the story of James 'Bucky' Barnes and Steve Rogers, friends since childhood and in tandem in the field. He doesn't remember much — knows they're still in a lost world, with blank days and moments of anger, on the road in a trashy car they'd been given. They hadn't need to ask if the other wanted to leave, a mutual instinct that led them to here. They sit in the car now, waiting, looking out at the settling dusk that glows over the horizon.

He looks at the man he can be Steve Rogers. The man looks back. 'You ready?'

And maybe, as he thinks about it, he is James Barnes.

'Yeah,' he says. 'Yeah, I think I am.'

For now he likes to think they're just two soldiers, on the road to nowhere.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started this fanfic around a year ago, then stopped, continued, stopped — and so forth. Finally managed to finish it, so hopefully you guys will like it! Something I've never tried before, especially with only the films for aid, so the whole coping mechanisms vary.
> 
> Please leave a kudos, thank you! ♡


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